Question about secular morality

[Darth Wong]

Arguments like this are precisely why I have to keep pointing out that "individualistic" morality is a contradiction in terms. All morality is social; a man living alone on an island would have no use for morality.

I could not disagree with this any more strongly. Let's consider the loose definition of "morality" agreed upon earlier: a code of conduct designed with a particular goal in mind. The Christian follows the teachings of the Bible (code) to get closer to God (goal); the humanist follows the teachings of modern philosophers like Locke and Mill (code) to try and create a more pleasurable state/society (goal); etc.

Well, that's what the advertising says. In reality, the Christian discards most of the teachings of the Bible as convenient.

There is no reason I can think of why this schema couldn't apply equally to a man stranded on a deserted island. Even without other people to interact with, a man must continue to make choices and value judgments about himself and his surroundings, such as "Is it okay to kill other life to sustain my own survival?" Formulating this formally: an isolated man strives to act in a specific way (code) in order to live a life he or she finds optimal or acceptable (goal).

Optimal for what? Individual survival? That's the same morality that a bear has. Unless you're saying that every living thing on Earth has a morality code, this makes no sense.

It's worth noting that the first formalized book on morality (Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics) deals exclusively with an individual's pursuit of the good life. To argue that morality cannot play a role on the individual level is to uproot the entire tradition of Western value theory, which is going to take a good deal of backing up for anyone to take seriously.

Yes, exactly. I am uprooting the entire tradition of western value theory, which I think is full of shit. And no, the fact that it has a long tradition does not make it automatically credible or superior. Why should it automatically be taken seriously just because western people have been doing it for a long time? The whole point of the Enlightenment was to recognize that thousands of years of these wonderful "traditional" ways had not actually resulted in a moral society. The entire Enlightenment was about "uprooting" venerable traditions.

[Bakustra]

Academia Nut, you misunderstood Legault's point entirely- the argument is that ultimately morality is simply a code designed for a particular goal- a secularist may develop their code based on their own conclusions, or those of John Stuart Mill, but it is still a code designed for a particular goal.

DW, your argument as I see it is that the entire tradition of moral philosophy is invalid because you believe it to be so (because, after all, moral codes that guide the individual are hardly unique to Western civilization- indeed, the great moral systems of China are all based on what individuals should do, even if Confucian thought argues that individuals should do this or that for the benefit of society as a whole), irrelevant nitpicking, and a misunderstanding of Legault's argument. Or perhaps you didn't misunderstand it- what is morality, if it isn't a code designed to guide one to a particular goal? In any case, I think that something greater than your personal distaste for philosophy should be necessary to throw out its entire tradition from consideration, frankly.

[Darth Wong]

It's interesting how "western value theory" became "moral philosophy" in your rebuttal. Since when are western moral philosophies the only moral philosophies? I never said that all moral philosophies are bunk; I specifically criticized traditional western individualistic moral philosophy.

As for "throwing out its entire tradition", you're full of shit. The appeal to tradition is a fallacy; rather than asking why I dismiss it, perhaps you should ask why you're expecting me to respect it. If you want to justify something, you'd better come up with something better than the fact that it's traditional.

As I said, and you ignored, Legault's argument could just as easily be applied to a bear.

[Ziggy Stardust]

The behaviour is completely determined by instincts,

Where is your proof of this? Or, conversely, your proof that human behavior is NOT determined by instincts?

A bird would behave much the same even removed from a bird collective.

This is patently false, and flies in the face of decades of behavioral biology. No reason to make stuff up because it fits your preconceived notions. Removing any social animal from its context has incredibly detrimental effects on its behavior. Luckily you bring up birds, and I happen to work with social birds (parakeets, canaries, and finches), and there are dozens of studies in the literature about the impact of isolation on their behavior and communication. In fact, in some cases the impact is quite severe, resulting in incredibly irrational behavior. Social constructs in animals are learned/taught, not innate. This was proven decades ago.

One can say that wolves are behaving "morally" since they care for offspring and kill discriminately - i.e. avoid attacking ones from their own pack, but this would be simply stretching the definition of morality and expanding it to areas where it is useless.

Because you say so, right?

Instincts already fully determine a wolf's behaviour towards pack, prey and other elements of his surrounding.

Proof? What constitutes an 'instinct' anyway, according to your world view? Why don't all wolves act exactly the same, if they are driven solely bi instinct? What accounts for all the incredible variation in behavior between wild and domestic wolves, wolves of different species, wolves of different packs, or different individuals within the same breeding population?

[Darth Wong]

Bears don't make choices and value judgments like he was talking about.

What makes you think bears don't make choices and value judgments? The fact that they're not very intelligent, or highly driven by instinct? For that matter, what makes you think humans actually make conscious choices and value judgments instead of relying mostly on instinct and then wallpapering over it with self-serving post-hoc rationalizations?

[Darth Wong]

Instincts already fully determine a wolf's behaviour towards pack, prey and other elements of his surrounding.

Proof? What constitutes an 'instinct' anyway, according to your world view? Why don't all wolves act exactly the same, if they are driven solely bi instinct? What accounts for all the incredible variation in behavior between wild and domestic wolves, wolves of different species, wolves of different packs, or different individuals within the same breeding population

Instinct does not mean "intra-species uniformity". Individual members of a species can have a range of traits, even genetically. Instinct can also interact with environment and history to produce various results.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Instinct does not mean "intra-species uniformity". Individual members of a species can have a range of traits, even genetically. Instinct can also interact with environment and history to produce various results.

I realize this. But the way Stas is using it is as a hand-waiving device to essentially dismiss the entire field of animal cognition and behavioral biology. I was just driving his logic towards its natural conclusion, which is absurd. Honestly, 'instinct' is not very commonly used by biologists anymore, since it has such loaded implications.

[Academia Nut]

Academia Nut, you misunderstood Legault's point entirely- the argument is that ultimately morality is simply a code designed for a particular goal- a secularist may develop their code based on their own conclusions, or those of John Stuart Mill, but it is still a code designed for a particular goal.

No I didn't, I was pointing out a flaw in Legault's thinking. The fact that he referred to any sort of secular philosopher as a source of morality indicates that he is still viewing the concept in terms of a religious viewpoint, of morality being a whole-cloth creation by a specific party. Not only that, but his placement of code before goal is also telling, in that the causality of the two are in direct opposition.

A religious code is handed down by God (or the gods/whatever) and obedience to the code is towards the goal of receiving some form of reward and/or avoiding punishment. Within the context of religion, that is the only function of a code of morality. There can be no appeal towards pro-social behaviour because that is outside the domain of what religious based morality considers. That religious morality often (but not always) promotes pro-social behaviour, or at least certain forms of it, is telling to secular individuals, but if a religious code demands the slaughter of the innocent then a peaceful saint would in fact be considered immoral under that code.

Secular morality on the other hand starts with a set of assumptions about the world and takes those assumptions to construct a goal framework that can then be used to derive a code of behaviour that will result in those goals taking place.

So religious morality starts with the code that if followed will lead to certain goals, while secular morality starts with a set of goals to construct a code around. Both are ultimately arbitrary, it is just that in religious morality the arbitrariness comes from the god(s) while in secular morality the arbitrariness comes from the selection of the goals in the first place. For the religious, the arbitrariness of the god(s) is immaterial because they are the god(s) and so whatever is said there must go, while for the secular since the existence of divine beings is not taken as a given the arbitrariness of choosing a goal system is preferable to the arbitrariness of a non-existent figure, especially since with the various religions, sects, and denominations the choice of deity is also essentially arbitrary.

[Old Peculier]

There is no reason I can think of why this schema couldn't apply equally to a man stranded on a deserted island. Even without other people to interact with, a man must continue to make choices and value judgments about himself and his surroundings, such as "Is it okay to kill other life to sustain my own survival?" Formulating this formally: an isolated man strives to act in a specific way (code) in order to live a life he or she finds optimal or acceptable (goal).

Optimal for what? Individual survival? That's the same morality that a bear has. Unless you're saying that every living thing on Earth has a morality code, this makes no sense.

I can't see that you addressed the point that the island individual might chose to live life in a certain way because this is what they find acceptable. I interpreted this point as meaning, for example, that the islander might attempt to live a vegetarian lifestyle due to the ethical choice to not kill if it can be avoided. This choice has no social value, but is nevertheless based on rational utilitarianism ie. minimising suffering, so therefore is an example of 'individual morality'.

A flaw in this argument is that by recognising the moral value of other animals the islander is treating them in a social manner, and so is not basing her behaviour on 'individual morality'.

[Ziggy Stardust]

If a bear can understand the concept of right and wrong, they'd have morality too, regardless of how you define "right". Whether it is "god god god", "me me me", or "us us us", or anything else, we can define it, reason about it, and ultimately, make a choice.

Morality is relative. You are anthropomorphizing the bear, trying to attach to it our own ethical considerations. Our own moral systems are simply a product of our social structures and they way they have evolved. Any system of morality that would be applicable to a bear would be different from our own, and part of that is a function of intelligence, and part of it is a function of socialness. You can't say the bear is amoral because it doesn't understand our own conception of morality.

Of course there's people who act like that, but when they get it wrong, we can say "you should have known better".

Way to completely evade Darth Wong's point. Again, what makes you think humans make conscious choices and value judgments instead of relying mostly on instinct? You are taking it for granted that humans rely on anything more than "instinct," as opposed to actually trying to come up with a reason that this is so.

You can't really say that about a wild animal.

Why not? What differentiates the behavior of a wild animal with respect to that species norm from the behavior of a human with respect to our species norm?

[Bakustra]

If people do not make conscious choices, then morality is irrelevant- the ability to choose between actions consciously is crucial to every definition of free will. Thus, your entire argument is self-defeating- if humans don't make conscious decisions, then morality is irrelevant, (indeed, everything is irrelevant, because there is nothing to assign relevance to things or to observe that relevance, even if we presume inherent relevance! In order to defeat nihilism, you annihilate everything. Curious, but I doubt you carried it that far.) and so arguing about morality is irrelevant.

It's interesting how "western value theory" became "moral philosophy" in your rebuttal. Since when are western moral philosophies the only moral philosophies? I never said that all moral philosophies are bunk; I specifically criticized traditional western individualistic moral philosophy.

As for "throwing out its entire tradition", you're full of shit. The appeal to tradition is a fallacy; rather than asking why I dismiss it, perhaps you should ask why you're expecting me to respect it. If you want to justify something, you'd better come up with something better than the fact that it's traditional.

As I said, and you ignored, Legault's argument could just as easily be applied to a bear.

You didn't bother reading my post, since I pointed out that individualism is hardly unique to moral philosophy in the West. And would you hold Einsteinian or Newtonian mechanics to this same standard? Should I demand that you reconstruct the entire justifications for physics every time you implicitly use them in an argument? Is that reasonable? If you answer yes, prepare to justify every implicit assumption in your posts from now on until the end of time.

Finally, I'm not sure what that sort of criticism is meant to address. That if we remove human consciousness as a distinguishing feature, we get nonsense results? I agree, but you seem to think that human consciousness is a falsehood. I'm confused as to whether you're actually saying much of anything.

But as for what you're saying, it's downright disturbing for someone who's a racial minority to be saying that the group overrides the individual period, and that it is immoral to go against the will of the group, then anti-racism, feminism, and gay rights are all immoral movements, and it was wrong for people to challenge the will of the majority. Indeed, for all your bleating about how tradition isn't enough, your moral philosophy as you have expressed it enshrines tradition to the only center of morality- things are moral because they are what society believes. I think that you haven't thought at all about what your position means, let alone how to reconcile it with your sneering misanthropic classism you display regularly.

Academia Nut, you misunderstood Legault's point entirely- the argument is that ultimately morality is simply a code designed for a particular goal- a secularist may develop their code based on their own conclusions, or those of John Stuart Mill, but it is still a code designed for a particular goal.

No I didn't, I was pointing out a flaw in Legault's thinking. The fact that he referred to any sort of secular philosopher as a source of morality indicates that he is still viewing the concept in terms of a religious viewpoint, of morality being a whole-cloth creation by a specific party. Not only that, but his placement of code before goal is also telling, in that the causality of the two are in direct opposition.

A religious code is handed down by God (or the gods/whatever) and obedience to the code is towards the goal of receiving some form of reward and/or avoiding punishment. Within the context of religion, that is the only function of a code of morality. There can be no appeal towards pro-social behaviour because that is outside the domain of what religious based morality considers. That religious morality often (but not always) promotes pro-social behaviour, or at least certain forms of it, is telling to secular individuals, but if a religious code demands the slaughter of the innocent then a peaceful saint would in fact be considered immoral under that code.

Secular morality on the other hand starts with a set of assumptions about the world and takes those assumptions to construct a goal framework that can then be used to derive a code of behaviour that will result in those goals taking place.

So religious morality starts with the code that if followed will lead to certain goals, while secular morality starts with a set of goals to construct a code around. Both are ultimately arbitrary, it is just that in religious morality the arbitrariness comes from the god(s) while in secular morality the arbitrariness comes from the selection of the goals in the first place. For the religious, the arbitrariness of the god(s) is immaterial because they are the god(s) and so whatever is said there must go, while for the secular since the existence of divine beings is not taken as a given the arbitrariness of choosing a goal system is preferable to the arbitrariness of a non-existent figure, especially since with the various religions, sects, and denominations the choice of deity is also essentially arbitrary.

All these words in order to attack something entirely non-essential to the argument, and fail to disagree with the actual argument at all. Frankly, I was tempted to replace your quoted post with fart onomatopoiea, because that's what it is- flatulence.

[Darth Wong]

If people do not make conscious choices, then morality is irrelevant- the ability to choose between actions consciously is crucial to every definition of free will. Thus, your entire argument is self-defeating- if humans don't make conscious decisions, then morality is irrelevant, (indeed, everything is irrelevant, because there is nothing to assign relevance to things or to observe that relevance, even if we presume inherent relevance! In order to defeat nihilism, you annihilate everything. Curious, but I doubt you carried it that far.) and so arguing about morality is irrelevant.

That's a brilliant argument. Unless, of course, there are shades between "totally conscious, independent of instinct" and "totally instinct, with no consciousness". And there is no reason to believe that bears lack consciousness. They just lack higher-order philosophy, much of which is actually post-hoc bullshit and you know it.

You didn't bother reading my post, since I pointed out that individualism is hardly unique to moral philosophy in the West.

Who the fuck said that individualism itself is unique to the west? Stop putting words in my mouth, asshole. The point was that a morality based on an individualistic one-on-one relationship between you and a deity is a Christian invention, hence western.

And would you hold Einsteinian or Newtonian mechanics to this same standard? Should I demand that you reconstruct the entire justifications for physics every time you implicitly use them in an argument? Is that reasonable? If you answer yes, prepare to justify every implicit assumption in your posts from now on until the end of time.

If you think that Einsteinian or Newtonian mechanics are justified by "tradition" rather than empirical data, you are a goddamned idiot. To even make this comparison is already a glorious form of idiocy.

But as for what you're saying, it's downright disturbing for someone who's a racial minority to be saying that the group overrides the individual period, and that it is immoral to go against the will of the group, then anti-racism, feminism, and gay rights are all immoral movements, and it was wrong for people to challenge the will of the majority.

Yes, I see that you are indeed a goddamned idiot. You are confusing the opinion of the majority with the benefit of the majority. All social morality is based on the prosperity and survival of the group. The fact that groups can often adopt policies which actually work against that goal does not change that fact; it only gives us examples of where morality codes have gone wrong in the past.

Indeed, for all your bleating about how tradition isn't enough, your moral philosophy as you have expressed it enshrines tradition to the only center of morality- things are moral because they are what society believes. I think that you haven't thought at all about what your position means, let alone how to reconcile it with your sneering misanthropic classism you display regularly.

Again, you have shown an inability to understand that a social morality code is for the benefit of the group. This does not mean that the majority opinion is always right. You are injecting democracy into my argument.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Morality is universal.

Why? Also, don't think I didn't notice that you ignored the rest of my post.

My position is very simple: if you have the capability to make reasoned choices, you ought to behave morally. Indeed, that's how I define the core question of morality: given a choice, which one would be better for you to make?

Bears make choices all the time. It just so happens that the decisions they have to make are different than the ones we have to make, due to completely different life cycles. What makes the human condition so special?

If you can make reasoned choices, you ought to behave in a certain way. I believe humans are in this category.

If you can't make reasoned choices, this doesn't apply to you. I believe bears are in this category. They have behavior, they respond to stimuli, but I don't think they have the capability to reason about things the way we do.

Yes, you said this already. And you ignored both me and Darth Wong's criticisms of this by just repeating the whole thing again. What makes you think bears can't make choices? Their brains are different than ours, their life cycles are different, the things that are important for a bear are different. Again: what makes human decisions so special compared to animal ones? Because you say so?

That's really irrelevant. If we don't, then ethics don't apply to us either, making this whole thread moot.

*sigh* Are you deliberately ignoring the point, or is it just sailing over your head? Address any of my above points or GTFO.

[Darth Wong]

My position is very simple: if you have the capability to make reasoned choices, you ought to behave morally. Indeed, that's how I define the core question of morality: given a choice, which one would be better for you to make?

That is a thoroughly useless definition, since the word "better" is meaningless without a goal.

If you can make reasoned choices, you ought to behave in a certain way. I believe humans are in this category.

If you can't make reasoned choices, this doesn't apply to you. I believe bears are in this category. They have behavior, they respond to stimuli, but I don't think they have the capability to reason about things the way we do.

Not exactly the way we do, but it's on a sliding scale. If you think we have some magical characteristic which makes us totally unlike all the animals, then I'd like to see precisely what that is. I know what creationists think it is.

[Academia Nut]

All these words in order to attack something entirely non-essential to the argument, and fail to disagree with the actual argument at all. Frankly, I was tempted to replace your quoted post with fart onomatopoiea, because that's what it is- flatulence.

Perhaps you are correct that my argument was poorly constructed. It thus behooves me to correct it.

Ahem, my original argument was that Legault was making a critical error in his thinking in assuming that religious and secular thought patterns are the same when they are not, and thus his understanding of the question at hand would ultimately be flawed. I attempted to illustrate the difference. In my second post, I expanded on my point that religious and secular morality approach the question of goals and codes in fundamentally different ways and that unless this can be understood, again, the issue will remain unclear.

Let me approach this from a different direction. Religious morality ultimately stems from authority. The argument "Because God said so" is not just a valid argument, but it is the argument. Teachers of religious morality thus claim the validity of their moral framework from authority granted by God (or gods depending on the culture, we will stick with monotheistic terminology from this point in simply for simplicity's sake). From the religious perspective, this makes perfect sense, since God is the Creator of the universe and knows so much more than we do and is thus the final authority on all things.

The secular viewpoint does not work that way. "Because X said so" is not considered a valid argument, it is considered a fallacious argument and a flaw in thinking. Ideas about reality flow from observations of reality and logical argument, refined over time as more information becomes available. Secular morality derives from no one person, it in fact derives from no person at all. Thinkers and philosophers may be referenced for the purposes of calling upon the arguments they have made, but they themselves have no authority to make proclamations one way or another simply because of who they are. This is the key part here: there is no one you can point to as having given secular morality the way you can with all religions. To think otherwise is to fall into the religious framework of thinking, which does not work here. You will never understand a secular thinker if you believe they think like a religious person, because under that framework nothing the secular person is saying makes sense internally.

In order to make a proper argument, you must understand the other side's argument. Religious logic makes sense if you allow that the validity of a statement can be affected by the authority of the person making it, and since all religious arguments stem from God who is the ultimate authority, whatever is said by God is therefore valid.

But again, secular folk reject the validity of arguments based upon authority, and since they reject the existence of God, they reject all religious arguments twice over. Since all religious morality is ultimately an argument in favour or disfavour of certain types of behaviour, this means that religious morality is rejected outright by secular thinkers. At first glance this leads to nihilism, but it is still possible to construct a moral framework.

This is where my argument of religious and secular morality working in opposite directions comes from. In religious morality, God imposes a code of morality that must be followed in order to obtain rewards and avoid punishment. The code comes first. There is no question of whether or not it will produce a better world for all, God has commanded that these rules be followed therefore they must be followed. The outcome of following this code has no bearing on its construction because it is created by God for reasons that cannot be argued against, since God is the ultimate authority.

Secular morality on the other hand comes at the question from the other side, asking what the consequences of following certain behaviours are, choosing goals based upon desireable consequences, and then constructing a code to work towards the goals.

So to sum up, the crux of my argument is that religious and secular people will often talk past each other because they cannot recognize that their thought patterns are different. The religious person is approaching the question from one direction and thus sees the secular person going about everything backwards and wrong and cannot understand why they are behaving this way. The secular person sees the mirror image in the religious person. The validity of either mode of thinking is a different, if related, argument.

That is what I was attempting to do, to warn Legault (and anyone else reading) that he is going to tie himself in knots in this discussion if he cannot understand the difference in approach of thinking. It was very likely subconscious, but referencing any secular thinker as a source of morality the same way religious figures are sources of morality indicates that he is projecting the same standards of thought onto the secular side and thus sees no internal consistency to their logic. I am not always the best at making my points clear, but certainly try to do so and I hope this explanation of my thoughts makes more sense.

[Legault]

I think you need to back up here for a second and re-evaluate your thinking for a moment, because you are making a fundamental error here, namely that secular people think differently from religious people. This sort of metathinking, to consider your own thought patterns and structures, is extremely difficult for most people to grasp, but also incredibly useful for debates since it allows you to actually think about what the other side is actually saying and thinking. The fact that you are projecting your own mental structures onto others is very clear here.

Can't say I appreciate the condescension here, friend, but I'll take it in stride. You may find that these same objections apply more to you than you realize.

There are no teachers or codes in secular morality and ethics

Oh, there are philosophers and the like, but part of the fundamental structure of secular morality is that it utterly rejects fiat declarations and seeks to construct systems that stem only from naturalistic phenomenon. This runs into the problem that nature does not give a flying fuck what anything actually does outside of a purely mechanistic perspective. The world is cruel and uncaring and utterly without morality on such a level it is actually alien to our normal perspective. However, instead of going down a nihilistic path, we must look at what our instincts are telling us and why we evolved those instincts in the first place. We must also make a judgment on what the actual goals of our system of morality are, which is essentially arbitrary, but the attempt is made to be somewhat less arbitrary than religious sets of morality.

So many unquestioned assumptions! Let's make a little laundry list: one, that the world is a causal-mechanistic nexus, which is a metaphysical claim (and I'm not big on metaphysics); two, that all moral/ethical codes must be non-secular (which seems absurd, so I hope I'm misunderstanding); three, that humanism rejects "fiat declarations" outright (even though most all humanists glob on to the same three or four basic [and typically Christian!] moral axioms).

And then there's the most basic objection at all: namely, why care about survival? The entire nihilistic problem is finding purpose in a purposeless world, and a blind obedience to inherited instinct doesn't do much to resolve things.

This same objection can be levied against your other moral verdicts: why care about other people? Why care about social efficacy? As you yourself said, non-religious morality holds no dogma; why not, instead, advocate a Social Darwinist system a la National Socialism, which emphasizes glorious human growth as opposed to crude survival? Or how about, having recognized the meaninglessness of life, try to bring about the end of human life a la nihilism? See, there are so many different possibilities out there, and you're trying to paint one in particular (one narrowly-defined flavor of humanism) as the only one. That's disingenuous.

---

Well, that's what the advertising says. In reality, the Christian discards most of the teachings of the Bible as convenient.

Ha! You know what I meant. "Good Christian" then!

Optimal for what? Individual survival? That's the same morality that a bear has. Unless you're saying that every living thing on Earth has a morality code, this makes no sense.

That's exactly what I'm saying, actually. And it makes perfect sense. "Individual survival" is only one particular aim among an infinite array.

Yes, exactly. I am uprooting the entire tradition of western value theory, which I think is full of shit.

Well now, so feisty! I assume that if you're going to try and accomplish such an Olympian feat, you must have tremendous experience with antiquity, yes? Because otherwise, you'd be acting embarrassingly sophomoric and presumptuous. But I'm sure (hopeful) that's not what you really meant.

And no, the fact that it has a long tradition does not make it automatically credible or superior. Why should it automatically be taken seriously just because western people have been doing it for a long time? The whole point of the Enlightenment was to recognize that thousands of years of these wonderful "traditional" ways had not actually resulted in a moral society. The entire Enlightenment was about "uprooting" venerable traditions.

Time for a little trip down history lane. First was the period of antiquity which you so vehemently despise. Next was the Renaissance, which is traditionally conceived of as a return to the classic cultures of Rome and Greece, but is better understood as a mixed period of reverence for the old and a revolution towards the new; Machiavelli is a great example of this, as, despite his great love for Plato and Aristotle, expounded a method of sharp political realism that continues to be used today.

What's the point of all of this? That the break from antiquity is new, only a couple of hundred years old (and new philosophical modes, like Pragmatism and Phenomenology, have since returned). People have revered ancient society for the better part of Western history, including the birth of modernity during the Renaissance. The fact that a couple of bad eggs existed (Descartes and Bacon) doesn't ruin the whole bunch.

But if that's not convincing enough, then here's something you can't escape from: modern and Enlightenment thinkers are almost all unwittingly a part of the Platonic tradition. Descartes, for example, is forced to buy into the Aristotelian metaphysic when he conceives of mind as "substance." Hobbes does his own thing and is admittedly rather excellent, but Locke's contract theory buys into an intelligible moral structure to the universe akin to the Stoics.

The lesson here is that you'd be a fool to proactively ignore where you came from.

---

Oh, and one more thing...

Bears don't make choices and value judgments like he was talking about.

I don't want to sound silly, but that's not far from what I was getting at. After all, if the world is just a casual nexus, then there's no room at all to speak of "free will." What separates bear from man, apart from claws and fur, is elevated cognitive function. That's it. If we make "value judgments," then so do all living things.

If that sounds ridiculous, I blame language more than the logic. The term I prefer over "value judgment" is "will to power," which gets rid of troublesome free will pejoratives.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Because I say so. (omfg i said it!!!!!) When you see people in the past, or in other countries, doing something, do you pass judgment on it?

I do."

So ... you're a judgmental dick, thus morality is universal? For the love of God, do you really not understand the concept of a tautology? What on Earth does passing judgment even have to DO with the concept of a universal morality?

If the norm over there is to make bad choices, I call it bad choices. I don't say "well, that's normal for them so it's perfectly OK.

And how does this address my argument at all? Here's a hint: as much as you may hate to admit it, people in other countries are STILL humans. And thus follow the same behavioral and cognitive patterns that you do. Animals do not.

Oh, please. There's no need to quote every fucking sentence to answer a post.

No, but there IS a need to actually address my arguments, instead of summarily ignoring them as you have done.

Here's an exercise for you: take something I (or Bakustra) said, and try to apply it to something I snipped from your post.

Why should I give a fuck what Bakustra is saying? I am not debating him, he is not debating me. We have not addressed each other's points. I have addressed yours, so I ask you to address mine.

I don't like repeating myself.

I find this incredibly unlikely, considering every single one of your posts so far has been a tired repetition of the same tautology, without any supporting evidence, logic, or attempts to address other people's criticisms.

It's generally accepted that humans have higher reasoning capabilities. If you want to dispute that, whatever, but it doesn't actually change anything. See my last post.

Nice straw man. Let me make this simple for you, since evidently you are inordinately dense:

Your position:

"My position is very simple: if you have the capability to make reasoned choices, you ought to behave morally. Indeed, that's how I define the core question of morality: given a choice, which one would be better for you to make?"

If this is how you define morality, how can you dismiss that bears and other animals have morality? They make decisions. Some animals, in fact, make incredibly complex decisions. Colonial insects like ants and bees are capable of making choices about individual sacrifice for the good of the colony that humans are either incapable or reluctant to make. There are birds with a capacity for abstract spatial memory and reasoning that far surpasses that of the human brain. There is decades of research in biology concerning animal behavior and cognition, that you cannot just throw out the window by endlessly repeating "I THINK HUMANS ARE SPECIAL." You need to prove that human reasoning is somehow special and distinct from that of animals; "higher" reasoning is a completely meaningless term.

All animals are capable of reasoning at some level. Certainly, humans have an inordinate level of intelligence. However, this is due to a unique set of evolutionary circumstances, and is mostly a product of our social behavior. Our brain anatomy and cognition fit a number of patterns that exist throughout nature. We fit the "puzzle" of evolutionary cognition. That is, other social creatures have similar capacities for higher and abstract reasoning. Look at the problem solving of crows and ravens, for example, which are well documented. Great apes, dolphins, rhesus monkeys, and arguably parrots have all demonstrated a level of meta-awareness of their own mental states; that is, the ability to say "I don't know" in response to a complex problem. This is a far more difficult cognitive task than it sounds, since we take that ability for granted.

So, you have to demonstrate

1) What makes human reasoning so unique and special that you can dismiss animal cognition out of hand. All the evidence points to the fact that our intelligence is simply refined and "perfected" (I hate that term, because our brains are FAR from perfect, but you get my point) through evolution for our purposes.

2) How this proves your argument that morality is universal.

[Legault]

@Destructionator: Very well put. Without free will, morality in the traditional sense no longer exists. But it may be of some value to examine just what this traditional sense happens to be. From what I've read, most (and this may not include all, so forgive me if I'm categorizing you wrongly) view this morality as a responsibility-morality: without free will, there are no autonomous agents at the base of action, meaning that there is no "self" to be subject to retribution. Only a collection of atoms, inclinations, molecules, passions, and forces in chaotic motion. Consequently, one can no longer talk about moral decadents as "responsible" in this usual way. Still, I maintain that meaningful questions of morality can still be asked. It just requires a letting-go of responsibility rhetoric.

As an aside (and I hope this is something you'll agree with), most "anti-free will" and "anti-moral" individuals still cling to moral precepts, i.e. killing is wrong, even when this is inconsistent.

[Darth Wong]

That is a thoroughly useless definition, since the word "better" is meaningless without a goal.

It makes an important distinction: morality governs choices, not states of being, not acts of nature or machines.

We are part of nature. Our behaviour is due to our nature. You're obviously using that nonsense "free will" argument, which draws an imaginary line between human choice and nature.

Not exactly the way we do, but it's on a sliding scale.

What does this actually change in our discussion? If that's so, the bear's moral responsibility is simply on a sliding scale too.

So the bear is not natural either? Just where does nature stop and "free will" begin?

This makes perfect sense if you recognize morality code governs choices. Individuals on a desert island can still make choices, thus morality is still a question for them, regardless of how you define the goal. (BTW, he never said it was individual survival. That's your own bullshit invention.)

Defining morality by saying what it governs instead of how it governs is like defining science and religion by what they seek to understand, not how they go about doing it. Lots of things define choices; legalism defines choices too. Violent coercion defines choices. Survival defines choices. Instinct defines choices. What makes a morality code special is not that it defines choices. It's how it defines choices.

[Darth Wong]

Legault:

That's one reason I've come around to the pro free-will side. Without it, there's no room for morality at all, and that isn't very interesting.

So you adopt a conclusion because it is convenient for one of your other conclusions? Do you realize how irrational that is?

[Darth Wong]

@Destructionator: Very well put. Without free will, morality in the traditional sense no longer exists.

Which is precisely why morality in the traditional sense is broken. This is the point I tried to make to you earlier, and which you answered with your incoherent nonsense about how you should not "forget where you come from".

You actually have to pretend that there's something called "free will" just to make traditional western morality make sense, because traditional western morality is based on the conceit that moral responsibility is a function of this "free will".

If you accept that morality codes are simply a social governing mechanism, then you would understand you don't need to invent some metaphysical notion of "free will" in order to have morality. Governor systems are used in all manner of technological devices without any notion of free will. Responsibility is therefore a matter of causality, and morality is a matter of adjusting the incentive system in society to produce healthier outcomes. No need to manufacture extra terms like "free will".

[Legault]

Which is precisely why morality in the traditional sense is broken. This is the point I tried to make to you earlier, and which you answered with your incoherent nonsense about how you should not "forget where you come from".

I see. At least now we know why you didn't feel the rest of my post was worth responding to.

You actually have to pretend that there's something called "free will" just to make traditional western morality make sense, because traditional western morality is based on the conceit that moral responsibility is a function of this "free will".

The moral theory of antiquity deals with a lot more than free will. Even the elements that are linked with theories of freedom have a great deal to teach us (such as the Descartes example I gave earlier, which is indebted to Aristotelian metaphysics). I don't recommend trying to view morality as entirely independent of other philosophical branches.

If you accept that morality codes are simply a social governing mechanism, then you would understand you don't need to invent some metaphysical notion of "free will" in order to have morality. Governor systems are used in all manner of technological devices without any notion of free will. Responsibility is therefore a matter of causality, and morality is a matter of adjusting the incentive system in society to produce healthier outcomes. No need to manufacture extra terms like "free will".

We can still talk about moral questions without dealing with free will (and you do this yourself when talking about the "value of survival"; that's a wholly moral claim). Plato, for example, is interpreted by many to believe that not everyone is capable of philosophy. Thus, there may be an intelligible moral order that is only accessible to those chosen few.

[Darth Wong]

Which is precisely why morality in the traditional sense is broken. This is the point I tried to make to you earlier, and which you answered with your incoherent nonsense about how you should not "forget where you come from".

I see. At least now we know why you didn't feel the rest of my post was worth responding to.

You actually have to pretend that there's something called "free will" just to make traditional western morality make sense, because traditional western morality is based on the conceit that moral responsibility is a function of this "free will".

The moral theory of antiquity deals with a lot more than free will. Even the elements that are linked with theories of freedom have a great deal to teach us (such as the Descartes example I gave earlier, which is indebted to Aristotelian metaphysics). I don't recommend trying to view morality as entirely independent of other philosophical branches.

Again with the antiquities. This is not a museum or a pawn shop. Antiquity does not automatically confer value, and name-dropping does not do so either.

If you accept that morality codes are simply a social governing mechanism, then you would understand you don't need to invent some metaphysical notion of "free will" in order to have morality. Governor systems are used in all manner of technological devices without any notion of free will. Responsibility is therefore a matter of causality, and morality is a matter of adjusting the incentive system in society to produce healthier outcomes. No need to manufacture extra terms like "free will".

We can still talk about moral questions without dealing with free will (and you do this yourself when talking about the "value of survival"; that's a wholly moral claim).

That is a natural imperative, not a moral claim. No one needs moral codes in order to want survival. Morality is necessary in order to compel people to act in a manner contrary to their individualistic desires, not consistent with them. No one needs a morality code to tell them to look out for their self-interest.

Plato, for example, is interpreted by many to believe that not everyone is capable of philosophy. Thus, there may be an intelligible moral order that is only accessible to those chosen few.

More name-dropping? Please tell me you have something more substantial to offer than name-dropping and appeals to antiquity.

[Legault]

Again with the antiquities. This is not a museum or a pawn shop. Antiquity does not automatically confer value, and name-dropping does not do so either.

Please. The last thing I would do is name-drop ancient philosophers to get e-cred, especially on a forum as pro-modern as this is. I'm only doing it because I feel it's an important point.

That is a natural imperative, not a moral claim. No one needs moral codes in order to want survival. Morality is necessary in order to compel people to act in a manner contrary to their individualistic desires, not consistent with them. No one needs a morality code to tell them to look out for their self-interest.

Never in all of my reading on politics and philosophy have I come across the term "natural imperative." Is that your coinage (I assume it refers to survivalistic impulse)? That aside, self-interest is infinitely complex, and may or may not include survival. Many people would rather die than live a certain type of life; how do you account for these types?

More name-dropping? Please tell me you have something more substantial to offer than name-dropping and appeals to antiquity.

Try and divorce the names of these figures (that you clearly dislike) from the arguments I'm making. P**** offers up an example of how you can have a moral conversation without free-will. But we can use other philosophers as well. Nietzsche would argue that only those who are driven by the will to truth can really approach "true" philosophy. Again, this is very elitist and highly deterministic, but there's still a potential moral order for certain people.

[Legault]

Not to sound like a broken record (and only a dozen posts into my usership, dear oh dear), but you should check out Daybreak if you want an influential account of morality. It's Nietzsche, which means it's relevant to all modern thought.